A Winter's Night

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  The Austrian army had cut through the Italian front like a knife through butter. There was talk of entire divisions encircled on every side with no possibility of escape. Fifty thousand, a hundred thousand, perhaps two hundred thousand prisoners: disastrous figures on the extent of the catastrophe were rife.

  “We have to set out again immediately,” said Cavallotti. “The entire front, from the Bainsizza to the Carso, has collapsed. The Austrians and the Germans are at our heels. General Cadorna is trying to organize a line of resistance at the Tagliamento. That’s where we’re going. That’s where we’ll stop running and we’ll turn around and shoot. Good luck, boys.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Captain Cavallotti’s small army continued their retreat until not a drop of gasoline remained in the tanks. Then, having abandoned the trucks, they continued on foot, stopping now and then to rest and get a little shuteye curled up right there on the ground. Their food supplies had run out; all that was left were a few bottles of grappa, but Floti had never been able to drink on an empty stomach and he would have sold his soul for a hot crescente fritter stuffed with a slice or two of prosciutto. He remembered how that transparent rim of fat on the coral-red slice would melt on contact with the steaming freshly-fried surface of the crescente, releasing all the sublime essence of the cured pork. Dreams and memories of the rustic banquets enjoyed with his family filled his thoughts. Food fit for a king on their modest country table, set out on a lavender-scented hemp tablecloth.

  He’d completely lost contact with anyone who could give him news of his brothers. The information that did filter through from overheard conversations among their officers bode nothing but ill: tremendous losses, tens of thousands of prisoners and many more than that missing in action, which meant slain or captured anyway. Since he was still alive, Floti reasoned that it was increasingly probable that any or all of his brothers were dead, wounded or imprisoned.

  Whose turn had come? Checco? Or Armando, who’d been skin and bones his whole life? Dante or Fredo, or Gaetano? Or all of them? He got goose bumps just thinking about how Clerice, and his father Callisto, would take it. There was no way they could survive the shock.

  After travelling about thirty kilometers in a westerly direction, they came across another clearing center packed with soldiers and refugees. Dispatch riders sped around on their motorcycles and Red Cross nurses fluttered like white butterflies over a sea of gray-green uniforms. And yet the center reminded them of another life: there were automobiles in circulation, trucks loaded with bread and other provisions, and even a mail van.

  Floti found a scrap of paper at the bottom of his haversack and a pencil that he sharpened with the blade of his bayonet and took advantage of the stop to write a letter to his parents. He informed them that there had been a great defeat, that the Germans and Austrians were still at their heels, and that he would be moving on with his unit to escape capture by the enemy. He also wrote that he’d had no news of the others and that since the telephone lines were out, like every other means of communication, he was not sure when he’d be in touch again, but not to worry, that he would try to manage somehow. He didn’t have an envelope, so he folded the piece of paper in three, sealed it with the stub of a candle and wrote his parents’ address on the back. He deposited it in a red mailbox with the Savoia coat of arms, hoping that it would reach its destination.

  By the time they left the clearing center, the enemy were just a few hours behind them and were proceeding at a forced march. They proceeded towards Udine, but it soon became apparent that that city was lost as well. Floti realized immediately that they wouldn’t be stopping when he saw the trucks coming with food, tents and ammunition. No one knew where they were headed, when their unceasing flight would end. One of the soldiers in Floti’s battalion came from the mountains near home; his name was Sisto. Floti barely knew the fellow, because he wasn’t the type of person he normally sought out, but Sisto, on the contrary, was always trying to strike up a conversation. That day he had started out by saying that the war was lost and so why not just toss your rifle and go back home. Floti nearly came to blows with him. “You damn idiot!” he said, pulling him aside, “you want to face a firing squad? If they hear you, you’re dead.” Sisto turned white; he hadn’t had a clue of the risk he was running, and from then on, he never mentioned the topic again. It wasn’t long before he saw for himself what Floti meant by those words.

  It happened when they were near Codroipo, shortly before reaching the Tagliamento. As they were moving along the provincial road, trucks in the center and foot soldiers on either side, the soldier from Naples shouted out: “Look, an airplane!”

  “It’s ours!” shouted another.

  “No, it’s Austrian!” shouted the captain. “Take cover, everyone!”

  Some of the men dove into the ditch at the side of the road, others sought shelter behind the trucks.

  “It’s on a reconnaissance mission,” said the captain. “They’re observing us, our conditions and our strength, to report back to their superiors.”

  “Let’s shoot him down,” said the sergeant, raising his carbine and taking aim.

  “No!” Cavallotti stopped him. “You mustn’t! If he dips down and you’re following him with the barrel of your gun, you risk hitting one of us. It’s happened before. Let him go, someone will show up to take care of him. Look, up there, that one’s one of ours.”

  They all stopped in their tracks, noses in the air, to witness the air cavalry duel about to unfold. The Italian fighter plane homed directly in on the other frontally as if it meant to engage, then at the last minutes veered to the right and tried to put itself on the enemy’s tail. The soldiers on the ground cheered the pilot on but the captain reprimanded them: “That’s enough! Get back into line, we have no time to lose and they’ll handle this one on their own. Sergeant, give the orders to march!”

  No sooner had he said these words than they heard more shouting. It came from a nearby farmhouse, which appeared to be abandoned. As they got closer, they saw two carabinieri with their gray three-cornered hats and carbines slung over their shoulders escorting a young man out of the building with his hands tied behind his back. He must have been a soldier, although he couldn’t have been any older than twenty. He was bawling at the top of his lungs. Cavallotti stopped with all his men behind him. The soldier was taken to the barn behind the house where a firing squad was standing in formation with their rifles at their sides.

  Just then the crackle of machine gun fire could be heard and one of the two planes went into a spin and plunged to the ground, leaving a wake of smoke behind it.

  “What’s going on, sergeant?” asked Floti.

  “Can’t you see? They’re executing him. He’s a coward who shed his uniform and tried to escape.”

  “They’re going to execute him? Just like that, without a trial?”

  “It’s called a court martial, Bruni,” said Captain Cavallotti. “Ten minutes are all that’s needed to find a man guilty of desertion.” Floti, who already knew all this, nudged Sisto so he’d understand the lesson was for him.

  The carabinieri tied the boy to a chair, facing the wall.

  “He’s to be shot in the back,” observed the sergeant. “The punishment reserved for cowards and traitors. Maybe he’s both.”

  The boy began weeping even louder as they blindfolded him. He cried out: “Mama, mama, help! Mamaaa!” calling for his mother like a little boy afraid of the dark.

  The carabiniere officer ordered: “Platoon. About . . . face!”

  The soldiers, who had been facing away from the barn, turned towards the prisoner.

  “The squad never sees the condemned man,” commented the sergeant, “and he never sees them.”

  Floti ignored him and turned to the captain. “But he’s just a kid who’s lost and terrified, they can’t just kill him like that. Isn’t there anything we can do, captain?”r />
  Cavallotti did not answer, but it was clear that he’d had them stop for a reason. Funny how they weren’t in a hurry anymore, the enemy wasn’t right there at their heels. He wanted to give all of them a lesson. Show them what happens to someone who tries to get away.

  The commanding officer drew his sword: “Platoon. Atten . . . tion!”

  Floti lowered his eyes to the ground. The same voice rang out again, brusque: “Load!” That boy had only seconds left to live: he’d heard the metallic click of the rounds being pushed into the barrels. What was going through his head?

  “Aim!” The rifle barrels converged towards the target.

  He had stopped crying.

  “Fire!”

  He collapsed onto the chair. As the guns thundered, Floti felt his own heart stop for an instant.

  He thought of Clerice waiting for him at home, fingering her rosary beads, awake at night in the dark, in her bed. He was sure that somewhere, someplace on the plains or in the mountains, the mother of that boy had heard his last silent plea, the words that never found their way out of teeth clenched in a spasm of terror. She must have collapsed as well wherever she was, out in the fields or in her house, her back sliding slowly down the wall as her eyes stared wide onto nothing.

  Floti turned around and saw that Sisto had tears in his eyes. Cavallotti didn’t say a word. He glared at the sergeant to ensure he would stay silent as well as they resumed their march. Towards Codroipo. Towards the Tagliamento flowing gray and swollen between its banks. Entire divisions were heading towards the bridges, with their baggage trains and artillery pieces. The pounding of boots trudging wearily forward was the dull backdrop to that unending march. And yet that multitude of men, looking more like a herd than an army, carried their weapons and wore their uniforms and obeyed orders. The unrelenting discipline, paired perhaps with the conviction that there was no alternative to closing ranks, kept together the hundreds of thousands of soldiers in retreat.

  The first to pass was the Third Army, under the command of the king’s cousin, the Duke of Aosta. They could be distinguished at a distance because they were formed in rank and file and were marching in step, unit after unit, their officers at their head and flanks. They had lost none of their equipment and as soon as they crossed the Tagliamento they took up battle positions in order to cover the others who still had to pass. But that was not to be the main line of resistance. The king had personally decided that the front was to be established on the Piave, and declared that he was prepared to abdicate if that line of defense were to fall.

  Floti and his comrades passed Udine as well on the night of October 30th, and it was there that Captain Cavallotti was informed by a message from the High Command that the new line of resistance would be the Piave river, while Mount Grappa would be the stronghold from which the artillery would keep the Austrians at bay if they attempted to break through.

  Towards evening, when they had already set up camp, Floti saw a colonel arriving in the sidecar of a Frera. He had the captain summoned immediately and Floti was close enough to hear their conversation.

  “How many men do you have, Cavallotti?”

  “Six hundred and fifteen, sir.”

  “Arms?”

  “Light arms and seven machine guns with ammunition.”

  “Good. This is the position your men will have to secure between the Priula Bridge and Mount Montello: this is a crucial point because Mount Montello will be one of the main objectives of the Austrian army. You’ll have to hold them off, at any cost. The English and French commanders have arrived and are promising reinforcements.”

  “About time,” replied Cavallotti.

  “Yes, right, but don’t be expecting too much: they have their own nuts to crack. Cadorna has ordered the Fourth Army to fall back from the whole region of Cadore beyond the Piave, so they can join up with the rest of our defensive front. Di Robilant won’t be very happy but he’ll have to comply. There’s desperate need of his artillery to hold Mount Grappa.”

  Cavallotti nodded. “When?”

  “Tomorrow at five you’ll have to set off. Don’t stop until you’ve reached your position. As soon as you arrive, dig in. Expect the Austrians to attack immediately. They won’t give you a moment’s respite.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I also wanted to tell you that we’ll be calling two more years to arms: 1898 and 1899.”

  “’99? But they’re children!”

  “You have a son born in ’99? Well, so do I, but we have no choice, Cavallotti. Good luck.”

  Floti felt his heart sink. 1899! Savino would be getting his summons from one day to the next. His parents would be alone, with just Maria and the farmhand. All seven brothers, whoever was still alive, would be lined up on the Piave.

  But where?

  He thought of those men with their fancy sounding names—at least they sounded fancy to his ears—deciding the destiny of hundreds of thousands of fellow human beings just by signing a line on a sheet of letter paper, those manicured fingers moving a pen over paper and moving entire divisions. It reminded him of the talks he used to have with Pelloni.

  The next morning they started their march and didn’t stop until they saw the Piave. It was much bigger than the Samoggia back home; it was in flood and its waters were raging and foaming. It must have rained a lot up in the mountains.

  “Men, look!” exclaimed the captain. “The river is on our side! We’ll blow up the bridges after we’ve crossed them and the Austrians will never get across with the water so high.”

  Floti couldn’t help but think that the Austrians and the Hungarians hadn’t done anything wrong. They were shooting at them because they had been ordered to, just like him, and if someone didn’t want to shoot they’d execute him, just like that poor boy they’d seen before arriving at Codroipo. He thought of what the captain had always told them, and it did seem right that each population should be independent and not ruled by foreigners who spoke a different language. But in the end, the only thing that really counted was saving your life and he hoped that his brothers would be spared as well. Not just for their sake, but for their parents, who would never be able to bear such a terrible loss.

  Before mid-November, the rumor got out that General Cadorna had been dismissed and that the king had put a Neapolitan general named Armando Diaz in his place. Floti waited until he had the opportunity to ask Captain Cavallotti what kind of man this new general was, struck by the fact that his name was Armando like his own brother’s.

  “He’s a good person,” replied Cavallotti. “He has had a lot of experience on the field, and he’s a man who thinks that soldiers are not animals, and that it doesn’t help to beat them down. That their courage will not falter if they are given good reasons for fighting.”

  Floti would have liked to say that he didn’t know any good reasons, but he thought it better to keep his mouth shut under the circumstances. Cavallotti, however, seemed to have read his mind. “I know what you’re thinking, Bruni,” he said, “and you’re right, in part, but you don’t know what’s really at stake here; you have to take a step back, and understand how the Italians have suffered for centuries over the loss of their liberty and independence. A nation is something like a family, you have to stick together. And when a stranger comes into one of our houses he has to ask permission, doesn’t he, and behave like a guest, not like the boss. What’s more, the fruit of our labor must remain here at home. And those of us who are better off must help those who are worse off.”

  Floti nodded without saying a word and Cavallotti concluded his speech: “I know we’ve seen too many deaths, far too many. I don’t sleep at night over it, don’t think otherwise. But I never send my men into danger’s way if I can help it.”

  “That’s a good thing, sir,” said Floti, plucking up his courage, “because it’s not like their mothers bought them at the market. Their mothers
conceived them and gave birth to them and stayed awake with them at night when they were ill and fed them the best they had, so they could grow up and live as long as possible. Let’s hope this new general thinks the way you do.”

  Cavallotti dropped his head in silence for a moment, then went outside to check the cannon stations. Before nightfall he promoted Floti to corporal.

  For at least their first two months there, they had no contact with other contingents and Floti could get no news about his brothers. From one day to the next, new soldiers were constantly being added to the line of troops along the Piave to comply with the king’s orders that no enemy be let through. As soon as the new year started, the latest recruits began to report for duty, boys of eighteen and nineteen. Floti continuously scanned the units to see if he could spot Savino, but it would have been easier to win the lottery. That didn’t dissuade him and, whenever he could, he’d stop one of the new boys and ask: “Have you ever met a lad called Savino Bruni?” And it didn’t discourage him if they looked at him like he was crazy or if they replied with a shrug or with a “what the fuck?”

  Once Floti saw that even the impossible can happen. An Alpino of about forty-five wearing a sergeant’s stripes, at the head of his company, was returning from the trenches, covered with mud from head to foot except for the black raven feather on his cap. Under the rain that had begun to fall from a gray sky, his boots were beating time as all his men marched behind him, formed into rank and file. Dead tired as they were, soaked to the bone, some of them wounded, they kept the pace like a single man. All at once, as they were crossing paths with their replacement unit—all bocia, as the Alpine soldiers called the youngest troops—one of the foot soldiers cried out: “Bepi! Bepi!” Half a dozen of them wheeled around as if they’d been ordered to perform a half turn to the left, but he was interested in just one, the one with the light blue eyes and the freckles. Bepi too abandoned the ranks, heedless of the cursing of his sergeant and the two of them embraced in the middle of the field. Both units stopped and the non-commissioned officers who commanded them did not have the heart to separate father from son.